Garth Brooks Retirement
 United States
Brooks' third album, Ropin' the Wind, released in September 1991, had advance orders of 4 million copies and entered the pop album charts at #1, a first for a country act. Ropin' the Wind's music was a melange of pop country and honky-tonk; hits included Billy Joel's Shameless, What She's Doing Now, and The River. All told, it became his second-best selling album after No Fences. The success of this album further propelled the sales of his first two albums, enabling Brooks to become the first country artist with three albums listed in the pop top 20 in one week.
After spending time in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots, Brooks co-wrote the gospel-country-rock hybrid We Shall Be Free to express his desire for tolerance. The song became the first single off his fourth album The Chase. With its message of support for cultural tolerance, the song met with resistance from country radio stations and from the culturally conservative country audience,and only reached #12 on the country chart, his first song in three years to fail to make the top 10. Nevertheless, the song often received standing ovations when performed in concert, went to #22 in the Christian charts through a marketing deal with Rick Hendrix Company, and earned Brooks a 1993 GLAAD Media Award.
The Chase was Brooks's fifth album, and in October 1992 all five of the albums were listed on Billboard's pop top 50 albums chart, a first for any artist in the modern pop era. The Chase, which Brooks would later describe as the album that gave the closest look into his mind, sold well, and its next two singles both reached #1. Nevertheless, sales did not quite match the sales of his previous albums, and marked the beginning of a tension between the music Brooks wanted to make and the music that most of his core audience was willing to accept from him.[citation needed]
Awards
Brooks won his first Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1992 for the album Ropin' the Wind. He was awarded the Academy of Country Music award for Entertainer of the Year for 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993, and the award for Top Male Vocalist for 1990 and 1991. As a performer and artist he has been compared to fellow country and pop/rock legends, such as the likes of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Jackson Browne, Kenny Rogers, Clint Black, George Strait, Johnny Cash, George Jones, and the Eagles.
Stardom
In 1993, Garth Brooks, who had criticized music stores which sold used CDs since it led to a loss in royalty payments, persuaded Capitol Records not to ship his August 1993 album In Pieces to stores which engaged in such practices. This led to several anti-trust lawsuits against the record label and ended with Capitol shipping the CDs to the stores after all.
Despite the delay in shipping the album to certain stores, In Pieces was another instant number 1 success, selling a total of about 10 million copies world-wide. Some of his fans were upset, however, that the album was not released simultaneously around the world. In the United Kingdom, one of Brooks' most committed fan bases outside the United States, country music disc jockeys, such as Martin Campbell and John Wellington, noted that many fans were buying the album on import; making it the first album to debut in the top 10 of the UK Country album charts before its official release date. Once officially released there, in 1994, the album reached the top spot on the UK Country chart and number two on the UK pop albums chart. That same year The Red Strokes became Brooks' first single to make the pop top 40 in the UK, reaching a high of number 13; it was followed by Standing Outside The Fire, which reached number 23. Previous albums No Fences, Ropin' The Wind and The Chase also remained in the top 30 in the UK.
To support the album, Brooks embarked on a 1994 UK tour, selling out venues such as Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre and London's Wembley Arena. He opened the London radio station, Country 1035 and made a number of general television and radio appearances, where he was often mocked by the presenters. On ITV's regional news show London Tonight, Brooks was described as a top-selling, rooting tooting, cotton picking, Country and Western star, yeeha! The nationwide Big Breakfast show's presenters Chris Evans and Paula Yates, commented that He's selling more records than anyone in the world, but none of us have ever heard of him. Yates then told Brooks that, Country singers always seem to be weeping over the dead dog and things, and also remarked, I thought you'd come in here and twiddle your pistol around and be impressed. Although Brooks remained polite, he did observe that Yates was obviously unfamiliar with modern country music. Scores of Brooks fans later wrote to complain about his treatment on the show. Sometime after this, Dwight Yoakam appeared on the same show and after Yates told him, You seem different from other Country singers we've had on the show, Yoakam replied, What? All two of us?
Despite the disdain of the British media, Brooks's overall popularity in the country was evident, with a top disc jockey, Nick Barraclough, referring to Brooks as Garth Vader (a play on Darth Vader) for his invasion of the charts and his success as an icon of the country genre. Unlike Alan Jackson, who refused to return to the UK after being treated in a similar manner by the press, Brooks returned in 1996 for more sold-out concerts, although this time his media appearances were mostly restricted to country radio and interviews with magazines.
Elsewhere in the world Brooks was also considered a star, and he enjoyed hit records and sell-out tours in countries including Ireland, Spain, throughout Europe, Brazil, the Far East, New Zealand, and Australia.
Hard rock
In 1994 Brooks paid homage to one of his musical influences when he appeared on the hard rock compilation Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved, a collection of Kiss cover songs by popular artists from all genres. As the only country performer to participate, some worried that Brooks would turn his cover of the song originally sung by drummer Peter Criss, Hard Luck Woman, into a country song. Brooks instead insisted on remaining true to the song, and requested that the members of Kiss perform the music on the track, the only song on the album that the band musically contributed. The unlikely collaboration performed the song live on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in promotion of Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved , and, despite its hard-rock appeal, Brooks' version did appear on the country charts.
Setting records
One of the later peaks in Brooks' fame came on August 7, 1997, when he gave a free concert in New York City's Central Park, drawing hundreds of thousands of people in a city that many would say is far removed from the country music world. Estimates of the actual crowd size varied considerably, from 250,000 to 750,000 or even higher, primarily because many people were enjoying the show from outside the full-to-capacity venue. Brooks himself has estimated the crowd at close to 900,000. An additional 14.6 million viewers watched the performance live on HBO. Billy Joel and Don McLean made guest appearances.
After showing that he still had the ability to draw such a large crowd, it was not surprising that Brooks won the award for the ACM Entertainer of the Year in 1998.
The following year the Recording Industry Association of America announced that Garth Brooks was the best-selling solo artist of the 20th century in America. This conclusion drew criticism from the press and many music fans who were convinced that Elvis Presley had sold more records, but had been short-changed in the rankings due to faulty RIAA certification methods during his lifetime. Brooks, while proud of his sales accomplishments, deferred to The King and stated that he too believed that Presley must have sold more.
The RIAA has since reexamined their methods for counting certifications. Under their revised methods, Presley is indeed the best-selling solo artist in U.S. history, making Brooks the number two solo artist, ranking third overall, as The Beatles have sold more albums than either he or Presley. The revision brought more criticism of the accuracy of the RIAA's figures, this time from Brooks' followers.
On November 5, 2007, Brooks was again named the best selling artist in US history, after audited sales of 123 million were announced
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